THE GREAT HANSHIN & AWAJI EARTHQUAKE
On January 17, 1995 a huge earthquake struck Kobe, Japan, where our school is located and where many of our staff and students live. Many thousands of people died and about a quarter of a million people lost their homes.

No one had expected that such a big quake would hit Kobe, so people were not well prepared. Most people whose houses were damaged or destroyed did not know what to do, but they gathered at local elementary schools. There were too many evacuees so they many then moved on to public junior high schools.

Fukiai High School also became a Evacuation Shelter for hundreds of people from the local community.
The main gymnasium and the judo room became the home for these victims. The last left in August of 1995.

After the earthquake, utilities, such as electricity and water were cut, so people had to overcome many hardships.
Water from our school's swimming pool was used to flush toilets. The electricity supply was turned back on after a few days, which was very important because it was the middle of winter and very cold. After a week, when the water supply was restored, students living as far away as Uozaki (90 minutes away on foot) walked to Fukiai High to fill water bottles with clean, drinking water.

IA CLASS & NDYS
This website and the safety maps were created by members of the International Course's International Affairs Class at Fukiai High School.

Tragically three students from our school were killed in the Great Hanshin & Awaji Earthquake. We would like to dedicate this part of the Fukiai website to the memory of those three students. We also made this to help members of the foreign community in the area so they can have easy to understand information in English.

We will present what we have studied about natural disasters at the Natural Disasters Youth Summit (NDYS)at HAT Kobe in March of 2009.

INTERNATIONAL COURSE STUDENTS BUSY WORKING ON THE PROJECT
Making Poster Version Safety Maps		Creating Online Safety Maps		Making PowerPoint presentations

PLEASE NOTE:
If you find any errors on these webpages or have any comments or would like to contribute something to this project please contact us at Fukiai High School.